Beginners Tutorial For Surviving First Day of MineCraft

**crex** · 05-24-2011

The essentials
You approach your first night, you will need at least wood and ideally coal or charcoal to have a fighting chance.
To collect resources, you aim at the block representing the resource and press and hold the left mouse button. This will instruct your avatar to punch the block repeatedly. Cracks will gradually appear in the block. Keep holding the left mouse button until the block breaks and drops. You can collect the dropped resource by moving near its spinning representation. It will then appear in your inventory. It is a generally good idea, if you are building away from your spawn, to mark it and make an arrow pointing to your home in case of death.
Craft a Crafting table
Crafting is core to Minecraft. While there are some items you can craft directly from your inventory, you will need a Crafting table to craft almost all tools and most other items.
To craft a crafting table, first open your inventory (press E [Default for Beta]) and click on your collection of wood:

Then place that in your 2x2 crafting square in your inventory. This will produce planks:

Left clicking on the plank icon will craft four planks for every one piece of wood you have. Click on the plank icon and move it to your inventory. Click on the remaining wood in your 2x2 crafting square and return it to your inventory. Click on the planks you just crafted and instead of left clicking, right click once in each of your four crafting squares. This drops one item instead of all items each click.
You should see this (with the exception that instead of a 3x3 grid of slots, you will only see a 2x2 grid for now).
Click on the result and place it in an empty square of your hotbar.
Press escape to return to the world view and walk to a spot you think appropriate, select your newly crafted crafting table with either the mouse wheel or number key, point at a flat square of ground (not directly where you are standing) and right click. This will place your crafting table on the ground ready for use. If you wish to pick it up again to move it, left click and hold to punch it to pieces and pick up its spinning icon.
Craft a Pickaxe
In order to collect stone and coal, the next staple resources, you will need a pickaxe. Your first pickaxe will be made of wood; not very durable, but until you collect some stone, it's all you have.
You will need at least five planks to make one wooden pickaxe. Use your crafting table by right clicking on where you placed it. Your workbench view is similar to your inventory view, except you now have a more useful 3x3 crafting space. First we need to make a handle for your pickaxe. To do this, pick up a stack of planks and place one above another anywhere in your crafting square. Two planks produces four sticks.
Pick up your sticks and clear your crafting table if there's anything left in there. Now place one stick each in positions 5 and 8, and one plank each in positions 1, 2 and 3. You should now be able to add a pickaxe to your inventory.You may have noticed that in order to craft a pickaxe, you more or less draw it with its components in your crafting square. Other items are crafted in a similar fashion.
Gathering resources
Once you've crafted a pickaxe, you can successfully acquire cobblestone. Start by finding stone in the world; it should be fairly easy, as it's extremely common. If you don't see any on the surface, dig down and you'll find it quickly.
Using sticks and cobblestone, you can now make some stone tools. It's recommended to craft a few stone shovels, a stone pickaxe and a few stone axes and a stone sword. Stone axes will allow you to cut down wood much quicker than with bare hands.
When you come across the pigs, it's good to stock up on a few pieces of raw porkchops. It's also recommended to punch sheep until you have at least 3 wool since it allows you to craft a bed in the shelter when the night falls.
Later that day, using your pickaxe, mine at least 8 blocks, and craft them in the crafting bench by arranging them in a square formation, leaving the middle slot empty. This will make a Furnace.Next, you'll need at least 1 wood block and 1 wooden planks block (you may have some as leftovers from crafting the crafting bench and the pickaxe earlier). Place the furnace somewhere, open it and place the wooden planks block in the fuel slot (the bottom one) and the wood at the smelting slot (the top one). Once both blocks are in place, the smelting process will start automatically, consuming immediately the wooden planks block and heating the furnace up. After a few seconds have passed and the smelting is complete, Charcoal will appear at the previously empty slot on the right. Place it into your inventory and you're ready to craft your first torches (read the Strike a Light section below)! Like crafting tables, you can break a furnace to collect it and be able to place it elsewhere, but, unlike workbenches, they require a pickaxe to do so. Breaking a furnace with your bare hands, or any other thing, will destroy it for good.
This entire process can be bypassed by mining coal directly (you'll still need a pickaxe to successfully extract it). Coal ore is found amongst stone blocks either in stone outcrops on the sides of hills or deeper underground. Wander around a bit, making sure to keep close to your spawnpoint - you don't want to get lost!. Keep an eye out for the characteristic black spots of coal ore blocks, as it's very easy to see if it's exposed. This is what you should look for:

Keep in mind that coal ore is subject to random placement, and you may not find any exposed or in easily accessible locations. Once you have located some, make sure that you are holding your pickaxe and collect as much as possible, keeping an eye on the time of day – it is probably close to nightfall by this stage. It's also a good chance to collect more cobblestone, which will be handy for crafting more durable tools.
Coal and charcoal have different names in-game and you can't stack them together, but they're functionally identical in every way. Anything you can do with regular coal, you can do with charcoal, and vice-versa.
Strike a Light
Initially, your sole light source at night will be torches. These are made from coal or charcoal and sticks. You don't need a crafting table to make torches, as they can be made in your 2x2 inventory grid or on the 3x3 crafting table grid.
Make some sticks from planks as required and place coal above sticks in your crafting squares. One piece of coal or charcoal and one stick make four torches. You can place multiple quantities on your crafting squares and each left click of the result will use one set of ingredients. If you cannot find coal on your first night use wooden planks to heat wood, and create charcoal. Now that you have the means to craft and a means of producing light, it's time to find a hole to cower in for the night.
Build a Shelter
There are several ways to construct a shelter. You can either build one in the open from materials you collect (dirt, wood, stone, sandstone), you can enclose the mouth of a cave, hole or other naturally occurring hollow, or you can dig a hollow in the side of a hill or make a hole in the ground. Be careful around cave entrances, as hostiles often lurk in those even during the day.
When choosing a method, you should consider your surroundings, what you have managed to collect, how much time you have until nightfall and your personal preference; however, it must have these key features:
Light. Mostly so you can see what you're doing. If you are in a sufficiently small area (less than 25 square radius) hostiles cannot spawn next to you. So even if you fail to find coal on your first day, you can make a small rudimentary shelter to see out the night.
Walls. Hostiles cannot deal you damage or shoot arrows at you through walls.
A door. If you have six planks, you can make a door for your shelter. When placing it make sure you place the door from the outside of your house as doors have direction. Skeletons can shoot at you from an inward facing door, but you can attack mobs from behind a door while remaining unharmed.
No big holes. It's sometimes a good idea to leave a hole high up in a wall so you can see when the morning breaks if you couldn't build a door. However, be aware that you can be shot at through a hole, some hostiles can drop through holes in roofs if they can get up there, and spiders can crawl through one-block-high holes if they can gain access. So choose the position with care. An alternative is a one block high outer wall, with an over hanging roof, and a one block high "window" so you can see outside. Then a full height internal wall that you can duck behind in case of skeletons who can shoot at you through your window.
A safe area to place your workbench. To pass the time waiting for morning, you might want to craft a few more tools for the next day. Initially consider making a few stone pickaxes if you were able to collect any cobblestone during the day, more torches, and definitely a sword. If you have encounters with hostiles during the night, you can deal more damage with a sword. Swords are crafted from one stick (not two) and two blocks for the blade. You can use planks or cobblestone.
So, depending on how much time you have left, what your surroundings provide, and what you have managed to collect, choose to either dig into the side of a hill, dig a small hole, live in the hollow your coal mining created, or build a shelter from materials you have collected. Remember not to dig straight down.
Be aware that building a hut is usually the most time-consuming and resource-consuming method. For example, to build a simple 5x5x3 hut you'll need 55 blocks of dirt, wood, stone or a combination of those materials (a few less for doors or windows). Digging a hole in the side of a cliff is usually a good plan, as you can collect cobblestone and dirt while simultaneously hollowing out a shelter. Watch out that you don't accidentally connect to a cave system while knocking out a wall. If you do, it's probably best to block it with dirt or cobblestone until you're prepared to explore it.
Once your work on your structure is complete, you can light it by right clicking on a wall or floor while holding a torch.
Also think a bit about the structure of your house as this will really be your only chance to change it.
Waiting Until Morning
Enjoy your first night. If you have made a cave, you can extend it with a shovel, a pickaxe if you have to go through stone, or your bare hands, but be sure to keep any additions well lit. You can either spend the night in your hole/house/cave, or, if you're feeling brave, you can venture out with your sword and take your chances with the mobs. If you do, stay away from the walls of your shelter in case a Creeper follows you and decides to explode, in which case your shelter could be destroyed. Another alternative is to begin digging into the earth a bit. Creating a mine in your house isn't a bad idea, but as was said before, never dig straight down. Dig in front of you, and if you want to descend, dig through a block a step or two away from your character. If you break through into a cave system, it's probably a good idea to block it off for now and come back to it when you're prepared. Mining in this manner should give you a significant amount of cobblestone and some more coal, should you find any. If you're really lucky, you might stumble upon some iron, which is invaluable in making tools. This option will probably pass the time the fastest; so fast, in fact, you may find yourself mining well into the day, and perhaps into another night if you get carried away.
Creating an underground farm is a good way to pass the night. It has advantages such as constant light and not being trampled by friendly mobs.
Once the sun rises, your troubles aren't completely over. Zombies and skeletons will eventually catch fire in the sunlight and burn to death, but beware of them until then. Spiders and creepers still wander about in the morning. Spiders will become passive in the daylight, just so long as they remain in the light and you don't attack them, but creepers remain aggressive and dangerous, so keep your sword at hand when you venture out.
You can just right-click it after being sure that it is in a safe, well-lit location that is at least one block away from a wall that mobs can't enter. If it isn't, you will wake up with an aggressive mob next to you. In a few seconds it will be morning again. Since Beta 1.4 sleeping in a bed will change your spawn point to the location of that bed.
Home Safety
If you have become comfortable in your home, you may want to keep it protected. This can be done by building a door or a high wall just outside your entrance. This will help keep your house safe from creepers and any other hostile mobs that may decide to pay you a visit. If you feel really creative, you could try to make a trap. A simple one is TNT under a pressure plate. The TNT is activated by the pressure plate and then blows up whatever is above it. TNT is made from Gunpowder, which is obtained from creepers. You will also need sand. After a while, you may want to let water enter the block below it, so it does no environmental damage.
TNT, however, requires resources that are difficult to gather, and they are a one-time use option. A better way to protect your home is to 'plant' cacti around it. Simply find some cacti, gather some sand, and place them in defensive positions around your home. You won't be able to make a normal 'wall' of them, since cacti self-destruct when something is placed in the area within one square of them in a + shaped pattern, but you CAN stagger them, creating a checkerboard pattern around your home with cacti. Remember to leave yourself a way in, but otherwise, cacti walls can be an amazing passive defense. Make sure that you do not place your bed next to a one block thick wall next to an unlit area, as mobs will spawn and attack you in the middle of the night!Sleeping safely outdoors

Another option, for example when you are not yet done with the shelter but the sun starts setting, is to build an emergency bed outside while still being safe!
requirements are:
-3 Planks
-3 Wool
-5 Dirt
and of course a crafting table to make the bed
If you just place a bed outside you will get attacked by monsters during your nap. There is however a way to avoid that.
The trick is elevation.
In this example dirt is used since that is quick to remove when it turns dawn again but other materials are possible. To build this;
-make a bed as described earlier.
-drop a dirt block on the floor.
-jump op the recently placed dirt block
-look down, jump up and quickly place a new dirt block.. do this twice.
-while holding the sneak button move backwards so you can attach a block to the side of the stack. - do this twice.
-put down bed on the overhang.
The single block that is not build upon will be the block you wake up on. With this setup you will not get woken up by monsters since they can not reach you.
An alternative but easy way to building this, for when you have not mastered the sneak and/or placing blocks while jumping; for obvious reasons, this requires 3 more blocks of dirt by comparison
-put one block down
-put two blocks next to this
-put three blocks next to this
-from the ground floor attach two blocks to the top block of the three block stack
-go up the stairs you made, dig away the top block of the two block high stack - below the V pointing down

This took a dam long time to write. So i MIGHT make a day 2 tut. This is survival guide for day 1.